by Deborah Solomon (Get the Book)
Esteemed art critic and biographer Solomon turns our perception of Norman Rockwell inside out in this fast-paced yet richly interpretative inquiry. Rockwell became famous for creating 323 meticulously rendered, witty, and touching covers for the spectacularly popular Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1962. Precise in their detail and expressive in their psychology, Rockwell's narrative depictions of all-American small-town life are charming and rascally, yet Solomon discerns sorrow. She reads his many portraits of exuberant boys as a rewriting of his own unhappy past as a runty kid in cramped New York apartments. Drawing was his solace and illustration his goal, though for all his success, he felt anachronistic as abstract expressionism flourished, and his fastidious realism seemed quaint. But that wasn't his greatest source of frustration. A workaholic neat-freak, Rockwell whose first wife divorced him due to mental cruelty, and whose second, the mother of his three sons, became an institutionalized alcoholic was happiest in the company of young men. As Solomon points out manifestations of homoerotic desires in Rockwell's brilliantly composed paintings, her sensitivity to his struggles deepen appreciation for his virtuosic artistry and for his valor in using his work to champion civil rights and nuclear disarmament. Solomon's penetrating and commanding biography is brimming with surprising details and provocative juxtapositions, just like Rockwell's mesmerizing paintings. --Booklist
by Henry Bushkin (Get the Book)
Show-business junkies old enough to have spent many of their late nights between 1962 and 1992 watching Johnny Carson, the King of Late Night, will likely devour this long-anticipated memoir in one gulp. Notorious for keeping his distance from one and all, even those he purportedly loved, Carson was perhaps closest to Henry Bushkin, his lawyer and consigliere for 18 years, from 1970 to 1988; the relationship ended badly, but Bushkin self-described as Carson's lawyer, counselor, partner, employee, business advisor, earpiece, mouthpiece, enforcer, running buddy, tennis pal, drinking and dining companion, and foil may be the one living person capable of giving readers at least a glimpse of the man behind the genial, oh-so-smooth mask. Naturally, there is more than one man back there. Carson, Bushkin says, was endlessly witty and enormously fun to be around, but he also could be the nastiest son of a bitch on earth. ... What would Carson have made of this book? Perhaps he might have recognized Bushkin's undying regard, even love, for his former running buddy, but more likely, Bad Johnny would have quoted from his Tonight Show character Carnac the Magnificent: May a love-starved fruit fly molest your sister's nectarines. --Booklist
by Beau Riffenbergh (Get the Book)
This energetic biography sheds light on a master undercover operative for the famed Pinkerton's Detective Agency. The iconic sleuth of his time, first hired by Pinkerton in 1873, McParland made his name (as well as the company's) investigating the Molly Maguires, a secret society of Irishmen whose crimes terrorized the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. McParland went on to become Pinkerton's western superintendent and oversaw investigations into Butch Cassidy and the Western Federation of Miners. Though the idealized McParland would appear in the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dashiell Hammett, the man himself proves far more flawed: he perjured himself to assure the sentencing of his victims, and often helped shrewd industrialists exploit an abused labor force. As a result, historians have both revered and lambasted him. Riffenburgh (Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition) takes up the "conundrum" of McParland's moral character and transforms legal and business records into a cinematic adventure through meticulous research. However, despite the momentum of the Molly Maguires' narrative in the book's first half, the episodes of detection from later in McParland's career are disconnected. Despite these lags, Riffenburgh brings a forgotten rough-and-tumble world to life. --Publishers Weekly
by Jane Ridley (Get the Book)
Long-lived Queen Victoria had an era named after her, as did her long-waiting heir when he eventually succeeded to the British throne. Edward VII was an absolute style icon and knew how to enjoy a good party and a robust liaison with a pretty and willing woman. The term Edwardian thus became associated with high fashion and high living. The title of Ridley's biography of King Edward is appropriate to the popular sense of the monarch, that his life was defined by his many years as the indulged and indulgent Prince of Wales. But significant research stands behind the author's more judicious understanding of the man, that the dissipated prince evolved into a model king. Barred by his mother from any participation in royal duties out of her obsessive conviction that her son was not of sufficiently solid material to follow her on the throne, Bertie turned, in compensation, to hot pursuit of pleasure, garnering a reputation for playing not only hard but even scandalously. Nevertheless, upon the old queen's demise in 1901 and his own accession, Edward rose to the occasion to be Britain's first constitutional monarch as we define that role today, modernizing the monarchy and making it stronger. A top-notch royal biography for all active British-history collections. --Booklist
by Sam Wasson (Get the Book)
Here's something you can't say about many celebrity biographies: at nearly 750 pages, it feels like it ends too soon. Wasson is such a lively, engaging writer that, as he takes us through the life and career of the multi-award-winning choreographer and director Bob Fosse, we scarcely notice we're turning the pages until there are no more to turn. Fosse is a fascinating subject: a perfectionist who seemed determined to drive himself into an early grave. He won numerous Tony awards for his stage work before segueing to the big screen, where in a shocking surprise he, not the favored Francis Ford Coppola, won the Academy Award for best director in 1973 (for Cabaret). Combining keen analysis of Fosse's stage and screen works (Wasson rightly approaches Fosse's 1979 film All That Jazz not so much as an autobiographical story as a fantasy) with a compassionate look at Fosse's often-tumultuous personal life, the book is everything you could want in a celebrity bio, without any of the gossipy, trashy, third-hand-rumory rubbish that makes too many biographies so painful to read. This one's a pure joy to read, cover to cover; you read it not merely for Fosse's story, but also for Wasson's inventive way of telling it. If this book doesn't turn up on some literary-awards lists, it'll be a serious crime. --Booklist
by Robert Hilburn (Get the Book)
The bare bones of Cash's story are widely known: the singer-songwriter's childhood years as a farmer's son longing to make music, his early hits, his descent into substance abuse, his tumultuous personal and professional life. Here, Hilburn, who covered music for the Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years, puts some meat on those bones. Did you know, for example, that when Cash moved to Memphis, he hadn't heard of producer Sam Phillips, or Sun Records? And did you know that the lyrics of Cash's early hit, Folsom Prison Blues, were lifted, not quite word-for-word, from Gordon Jenkins' Crescent City Blues? The book is based on previously published material and on the author's interviews, over the years, with numerous sources, including Cash and his family; Phillips; musicians such as Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty; and many of Cash's friends and colleagues (each chapter is thoroughly sourced). It's always tricky to call a biography definitive, but this one must surely come close. --Booklist
by Christopher Klein (Get the Book)
Freelance writer Klein offers this treasure trove of information that covers sports, celebrity, crime, politics and entertainment as he tracks the John L. Sullivan, "Boston Strong Boy," across the country and globe as he rises from the tenement to the heavyweight championship and everything that came with it. Boxing fans will delight in the detailed accounts of Sullivan's battles (he was the heavyweight champion from 1882 to 1892) with Paddy Ryan, Charley Mitchell, Jake Kilrain, and Jim Corbett, while others might find more interest in Sullivan drunken exploits. Also, of interest is how Klein, using his expressive-yet-scholarly prose ("A boxer always represents power in its most visceral sense, and John L. symbolized an ascendant America that was flexing its economic muscles"), ties Sullivan to the issues of the era, such as temperance, class and race relations, immigration, and America's growth into a world power. In fact, if this book has a drawback it might be that boxing sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of all Sullivan's other activities. Still, Klein should not be faulted for his thoroughness since, even though this may not be the first book about Sullivan, it just may be the most exhaustive. --Publishers Weekly
